Arlen Specter leaves a legacy as a tireless advocate for his state

The longtime U.S. senator from Pennsylvania died Sunday at the age of 82.

(Pete Marovich, MCT )

October 14, 2012|By Colby Itkowitz and Matt Assad | Of The Morning Call

WASHINGTON – Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, a storied political institution whose legacy began as a young attorney investigating John F. Kennedy's assassination and ended as a veteran senator switching parties to cling to his three-decade career, died Sunday morning at his Philadelphia home. He was 82.

At times acerbic, shrewd and quick on his feet, Specter didn't just have a front-row seat for some of American history's most memorable moments, he shaped them. He played pivotal, yet controversial roles in several Supreme Court nominations and cast fiercely independent votes that put him at odds with his Republican peers.

The consummate fighter, Specter overcame two bouts of Hodgkin's disease, a brain tumor and cardiac bypass surgery in his lifetime. He announced in late August that his cancer had returned and he'd been hospitalized. He died of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Specter was the state's longest-serving senator known for his indefatigable dedication to his constituents.

"Specter did more for the people of Pennsylvania over his more-than 30-year career with the possible exception of Benjamin Franklin," said former Gov. Ed Rendell.

Specter, driven in part by his ego and part his deep love of the Senate, switched political parties from Republican to Democratic before his re-election in 2010 to avoid a tough, if not unwinnable, primary against conservative Pat Toomey.

What Specter perhaps did not anticipate was that Democrat Joe Sestak would challenge him and successfully cast Specter as an opportunist who changed parties not for ideology but to keep his job. It was a hard sell to lifelong Pennsylvania Democrats — that after years of working to unseat Specter, they should suddenly embrace him solely because of the "D" letter next to his name.

Specter claimed it was his break from the GOP over the 2009 economic stimulus legislation that created so much animosity toward him that the Republicans pushed him into the arms of the Democrats. His conversion in spring 2009 gave the Democrats the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass the health care reform law.

"Here's a man that was willing to stand up to his party. A vote he knew would harm his career," Sestak said. "It was an honor to be in the arena with him. Nobody, nobody outworks Arlen Specter, and I work hard. I mean he is the best of the best and I was in there with him. It was an honor."

In an interview before the primary election a year after his switch, Specter told The Morning Call that during the health care debate, he had considered whether he "might have helped the country more if I'd stayed a Republican" to bring more people across the aisle on the issue.

Specter prided himself as a coalition builder. He was a pro-choice Republican who supported stem cell research, fought for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health and funneled money home for Pennsylvania projects. With the rise of the tea party and the partisan hardening in Washington, Specter's loss was widely regarded as the end of moderation on Capitol Hill.

"Collegiality can obviously not be maintained when negotiating with someone simultaneously out to defeat you, especially within your own party," Specter said in his final speech on the Senate floor. He added, "Eating or defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism."

Deeply analytical, Specter was foremost a prosecutor with an unmatched understanding of the law. He had chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, but it was his time on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he also chaired for a short period, that defined his career.

In 1987, Specter announced he would oppose conservative Robert Bork, President Ronald Reagan's choice for the Supreme Court. Specter's intense cross examination of Bork that concluded with his "no" vote on Bork's nomination was the reason Bork never made it to the bench.

Four years later, Specter supported the nomination of President George W. Bush's conservative pick, Clarence Thomas. He was asked by the White House to lead the questioning of Anita Hill, a woman who had accused Thomas of sexual harassment. His brutally aggressive takedown of the University of Oklahoma law professor was regarded by many as sexist.

Liberals and women's rights advocates never quite forgave him.

In 2010, during a heated radio interview exchange with Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, he told her to "act like a lady," resurfacing the vitriol some women still felt about Specter's treatment of Hill.

With the reputation of a maverick, Specter cemented that view in 1999 during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Rather than vote guilty or not guilty like every other senator, he cited Scottish law and voted "not proven, therefore not guilty."

Specter was infamous on Capitol Hill for his at times cantankerous personality and his workaholic expectations of his staff. He was known around town as "Snarlin' Arlen."